Tim Winton

“Thinks the sun shines out yer clacker.”

— Tim Winton

Humour's the pay-off for all that existential horror.

— Tim Winton

“God is what you do, not what you believe in.”

— Tim Winton

“That eye... was like a fuckin hole in the universe”

— Tim Winton

It's impossible to imagine what Australia would be like without surfing.

— Tim Winton

“Every vegetable, every bit of protein on the list had a provenance more complex than a minor Rembrandt.”

— Tim Winton

“I have never been a violent man. Just a little creepy, it seems.”

— Tim Winton

“...the past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.”

— Tim Winton

Humour is God's special gift to humanity. Handy, because it turns out to be necessary.

— Tim Winton

“He was poor and foolish and people will always have a place in their hearts for the harmless.”

— Tim Winton

“Dirt music, Fox tells Georgie, is "anything you can play on a verandah or porch, without electricity.”

— Tim Winton

Whatever you believe, you need faith to get through the day.

— Tim Winton

It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, compassion, art, love. All of them pointless. But they're what keeps life…

— Tim Winton

Whether you're in the water staring up at a looming set or standing in front of 15000 people at a demo, you…

— Tim Winton

“She wants to be something creative,' he murmured. 'It's not something to want. It's something you have. It's a curse. One she…

— Tim Winton

We rise to a challenge and set a course. We take a decision. You put your mind to something. Just deciding to…

— Tim Winton

“Rare as rocking-horse turds, these days, feeling halfway to decent, with barely a sick twinge, and he was damned if he’d waste”

— Tim Winton

I don't consciously watch and file lived moments for my work. I have a couple of writer friends who do that and…

— Tim Winton

“Shit, he said as a great, green glut of water poured up at our feet. I wonder what the ordinary people are…

— Tim Winton

I wanted to be a writer all my life. Since I was 10. And then at a certain point I began to…

— Tim Winton

Surfers travelled and opened up and changed. It became more mainstream, less of a cult. And it diversified. On any given day…

— Tim Winton

I've been a writer and a parent since adolescence, it feels like, and I'm still making both gigs up as I go…

— Tim Winton

Yet however comforting and peaceful beach-combing is, it ends up like the sea, as disturbing as it is reassuring. In dark moments…

— Tim Winton

The beachcomber goes looking for trouble, everything he finds is a sign of trouble. The writer is the same; without trouble he…

— Tim Winton

Will you look at us by the river! The whole restless mob of us on spread blankets in the dreamy briny sunshine…

— Tim Winton

For a while Australians were desperately trying to be cosmopolitan. I think it is a pointless exercise. Australian novels are those rooted…

— Tim Winton

“Time doesn't click on and on at the stroke. It comes and goes in waves and folds like water; it flutters and…

— Tim Winton

I don't believe there's anything cosmic or divine or morally superior about whales and dolphins or sharks or trees, but I do…

— Tim Winton

“I will always remember my first wave this morning. The smells of paraffin wax and brine and peppy scrub. The way the…

— Tim Winton

“In Europe, the dimensions of physical space seemed compressed. The looming vertical presence of mountains cut me off from the horizon. I'd…

— Tim Winton

“The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city…

— Tim Winton

“The pig winks and rolls in the bog. He kicks his legs up and his trotters clack together. The sun is low…

— Tim Winton

I grew up in a whaling town. We didn't stop whaling in Australia until 1978. And I've always lived in fishing communities.…

— Tim Winton

The desert is a spiritual place, we vaguely understand, and the sea the mere playground of our hedonism.

— Tim Winton

It's funny, but you never really think much about breathing. Until it's all you ever think about.

— Tim Winton

“Glamour-hounds and donor-hogs they may be but he loved them.”

— Tim Winton

“Inside those waves our voices bounced back at us, deeper and larger for all the noise, like the voices of men. ”

— Tim Winton

“...architecture was what you had instead of landscape, a signal of loss, of imitation. Europe had it in spades...”

— Tim Winton

Surviving is the strongest memory I have; the sense of having walked on water.

— Tim Winton

“Keep the day ahead of you, that's what the old man used to say.”

— Tim Winton